Inspired by Ashton

Published Thursday 23 June 2005 at 11:45 by John Percival

The Royal Ballet called its evening of new works Inspired by Ashton, but I could not truly see any effective Ashton influence. By far the most enjoyable piece in fact was inspired by Ashton’s friend and colleague Constant Lambert, whose centenary falls this year. He wrote Mr Bear-Squash-You-All-Flat aged 18, adapting a Russian children’s tale into an anecdote with music.

Will Tuckett’s staging does not use real characteristics of the animals it represents, but (thanks to Lambert) is lively and amusing, with an excellent cast, notably Laura Morera’s Mouse.

There were to have been four further creations but a last-minute injury meant that Fantasy by the Canadian choreographer Peter Quanz had to be omitted from the press night. The three remaining contributors all did entirely typical productions. Antony Dowson most years makes plotless dance showpieces for students of English National Ballet School, and his Momento was another such to six Rachmaninoff piano pieces: innocuous, pleasant but undistinguished.

How Kim Brandstrup could claim that his Two Footnotes drew on Ashton’s Fille and Salut d’Amour is beyond me. The one is a messily lascivious duet for Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, the other a rather static solo for Zenaida Yanowsky. Set to arias respectively by Gluck and Handel, they served largely to reinforce my belief that Brandstrup does not listen to music.

Finally, in Engram, Wayne McGregor repeated his usual twisted variants on ballet steps for Cojocaru, later joined by Federico Bonelli, and Ravi Deepres provided a sequence of film fragments so amazingly speeded up that only Ashton’s recurring face was recognisable. However, the participion of popular RB dancers ensured cheers from a full house all evening.